Tag: Christina Britton

Some Dukes Have All the Luck by Christina Britton

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Part of a Series, Regency Era (1811-1820)Leave a comment

Some Dukes Have All the Luck (Synneful Spinsters, #1)Barbara’s rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Series: Synneful Spinsters #1
Publication Date: 11/8/22
Period: Regency
Number of Pages: 343

I enjoyed this author’s previous series, Isle of Synne, where we met our current heroine in the final book. Miss Bronwyn Pickering is a Naturalist who specializes in Entomology. Her selfish, social climbing, overbearing parents aren’t enamored with her bookish ways and are bent on marrying her off to a titled gentleman. Bronwyn has spent years studying, analyzing, and collecting data – she’s even discovered a previously unknown beetle and she dreams of writing a scientific paper about it. That dream comes to a crashing end when her cruel parents went into her rooms, took all of her specimens, research notebooks, written papers, instruments, etc., and smashed them – then threw them all out. The only bright spot left in her life is her friends who collectively refer to themselves as The Oddments. Her parents have also just told her she will not be allowed to associate with those ladies anymore. According to her parents, her only goal in life is to make herself into the perfect lady in order to attract a titled gentleman.

Ash Hawkins, Duke of Buckley, had a horrendous home life as a child. Nobody was spared his father’s wrath – not his wife, not his son, not the servants, not even the children on the estate. He dealt wounding and killing blows with both his fists and his words. Everyone knew of his father’s reputation and took great delight in taking it out on Ash when he was away at school. As an adult, Ash knows he can’t afford to love anyone – he’ll taint anyone who is close to him – so when he ends up with three young wards he is at a total loss in how to handle them. He hires governess after governess and the wards just run them off. Then, the two youngest wards run off as well.

Ash is sorely in need of someone to raise his wards and when he discovers that the two younger ones have befriended Bronwyn Pickering, he proposes not ten minutes after meeting her. Bronwyn is sorely in need of liberation from her parents, so a marriage in name only would work for both of them. Until it doesn’t, of course.

This was a nice read – thus the three stars – but it just didn’t resonate with me personally. I didn’t buy the chemistry between Bronwyn and Ash and, more to the issue, I think I am just done with protagonists (particularly the males) who take on the sins of their fathers. I have read several of these – my father was a brute, therefore I am a brute – stories lately and I am just tired of them. So, while this was a perfectly nice story, it just didn’t reach out and pull me in. If you decide to give the book a try, I hope you will love it.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

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A Duke Worth Fighting For by Christina Britton

On By TracyIn Georgian Era (1714-1837), Regency Era (1811-1820), Tracy's ReviewsLeave a comment

A Duke Worth Fighting For (Isle of Synne, #3)A Duke Worth Fighting For by Christina Britton

Tracy’s rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Series: Isle of Synne, #3

Release Date: August 24, 2021

The last thing Daniel Hayle ever wanted was to be the Duke of Carlisle, but with the death of his beloved brother, the title fell to him. Daniel knows that he needs to marry and beget an heir as soon as possible. Always a bit socially inept and now horribly scarred and suffering from PTSD (thanks to Waterloo), the thought of going to London fills him with dread. So when his mother suggests he visit her good friend on the Isle of Synne so he can ease back into society, he jumps at the chance, maybe he will find a wife who can overlook his scars long enough to produce an heir.

Widow Margery Kitteridge lives on Synne with her grandmother, Viscountess Tesh, and is still mourning the death of her husband Aaron. Unlike most HR widows, Margery actually loved her husband, loved him so much that she defied her father to marry him and was disowned and when he died, she vowed to never marry again. She is horrified when she receives a letter insinuating that Aaron didn’t die honorably and threatens to expose his “cowardness” to the papers if Margery doesn’t pay the sum of £100. Margery doesn’t have the money and doesn’t want to ask any of her friends, so when socially awkward Daniel shows up, looking for a bride, Margery sees an opportunity to make the money. She offers to help Daniel navigate society and find a bride, for the very reasonable sum of £100!

This was another well-written installment of the Isle of Synne Series featuring a grieving widow and a scarred hero. The story has a definite “Beauty and the Beast” vibe, but it is more than that, it has blackmail, a heroine who truly loved (and still loves) her late husband, a hero who had insecurities long before he was scarred, a lot of emotion, very mild love scenes, cameos from previous characters, matchmaking relatives, all leading up to their HEA. The book was good, but not my favorite in the series, I liked Margery and Daniel, but I found their story very easy to put down, as I felt that it was a bit bland and slow-paced. This is the third book in the series and could be read as a standalone, but I would recommend reading the series in order for the best reader experience.

*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that I requested and was provided to me by the publisher. All opinions in this review are my own.*